To be really pissed off at a big arguement I’ve had with my husband about sexism

[budgiegirl]

DH and I are on our last evening of a lovely holiday. Bit we’ve had a huge argument this evening because he doesn’t seem to believe that sexism in the workplace still exists. He told me it doesn’t happen at my work (male boss, all others women), at his work (he’s the boss, all others are women), he doesn’t believe there’s a gender pay gap in this day and age. He said he doesn’t believe there’s sexism because it doesn’t affect him! When I tried to explain it doesn’t affect him because he’s a man, so doesn’t really notice it, he denied it.

Things got a bit heated, and when I tried to calm it down, say let’s put it behind us, and go out for dinner for our last night in this beautiful city we’re in, he refused, and told me I’m horrible because I always have to be right, I told him that’s because I am right, and have gone out on my own, because I’m not sitting in a hotel room for my last night here.

AIBU to be so annoyed that my DH doesn’t seem to think that sexism still exists?

I was going to say this too. Sometimes, people don't get it, if they've never experienced it. They think it's so far in the past and we've moved on from the times of racism, because it's not as overt as it used to be.

There are different ways of responding, though. I was chatting to a male colleague about workplace sexism, and he said he'd never noticed it - but his conclusion was he's blind to it, rather than I'm stupid. (Which made a change from the more usual response that I'm being oversensitive.)

Gender pay gap will also be down to a variety of factors. Last time I looked at the data ( a while ago now) women and men were doing equally well at work until women have children. Women’s careers tend to stall then and of course many women chose to return part time, as well as taking periods out of work for maternity.

Those factors also include sexism, because not all women have children, and not all women's salaries keep up even then.

I also despair at the way we’re supposed to accept that women who have children will always be ‘behind’. I’ve had this where I’ve been at the same grade as a male counterpart but paid less, with the argument that when they were hired or promoted into role they were on a higher salary so the % increase is equivalent. But many of these cases I was outperforming so what justification is there for me being paid less? None. But because I’ve had a non linear career and had periods of time part time to care for children even now, 13 years later, it means I am not paid equivalent. My friend recently got access to her previous jobs interview notes about her via SAR and there were WRITTEN concerns about her being a single parent. They hired her but how many women aren’t hired for similar reasons that aren’t recorded? Perhaps all women should go on childbirth strike until the playing field is levelled.

And on an individual level I am sure there will always be reasons that can be found to justify discrepancies, but in a structural level it shows institutional sexism, so OP I 100% agree.

Prove it to me. She me a job that pays men more than women for the same work and same results ?

I think the most upsetting more personal part is that its highly likely because you're a woman he thinks less of you. So your views and experiences don't mean as much. If another man was telling him this one he respected he'd likely give more thought to it. Or it would be more important to him to educate himself with facts for his next conversation with this respected man. But a woman or child can be dismissed an punished for not agreeing with him. Can be resented for causing his any manner of inconvenience.
And that would at the heart of everything always be there.
My husband was like this at the beginning of our marriage he hid it well at the start but once married with a child I started seeing the views he held were the same as the old dinosaurs he worked with. I don't think it was a conscious decisions just a gender shaping conditioning of years of entitlement male privilege. Working in male dominated environments with old men who would tell him "well your wife should do the childcare should cook you dinner... he ironically disliked those men and didn't want to be anything like them and yet...
He thought he was being nice to me by not demanding those things all the while he held resentment towards me and thought i had this easy blessed life (but wouldn't admit it at the time only later)

Once you start seeing it it's hard to unsee.
i couldnt pretend. So for me I started the ball rolling for divorce because attempted conversations were again the little woman unnecessarily complaining.

Only when life got hard and uncomfortable for him (he was also depressed so very desperate for change)and professionals plus other men started saying no your wife is right did the penny drop.
So he went to therapy and a men's group all about entitlement and male gender shaping.
It is night and day the difference. We are now very happily together but I think we are absolutely the exception and not the rule unfortunately. Now he will pick up any man or woman for misogyny. He even left a job because the boss was horrendously misogynistic. He is no longer a bystander or pretender for a easy life.

Only you know op with your partner and your relationship but sometimes once you start to observe them you see all the behaviors and opinions and the contempt for you. That maybe before you would of given the benefit of the doubt.

Yes.

Same. We have vociferously different views on Scottish independence. We simply do not discuss it (but at least he’s stopped voting SNP…)

God, life is too short.

That is not what the gender pay gap is.
You are talking about equal pay for equal work. It is illegal in the UK to pay a woman less than a man for doing the same or equivalent work.

The gender pay gap is about how on average, across all jobs in all sectors, women are paid less than men for the same hours. It is a mathematical effect, primarily caused by men being in higher paid jobs. This is because men are promoted more than women, and because women go into low-paid sectors like social care and health care.

So the sexism question is about firstly why are men more readily promoted, and secondly why are the areas of work dominated by women (like care) lower paid, despite them being absolutely vital to society.

Funnily enough I had a similar argument with my (female) boss last week. Although I won and neither of us stormed off 🤣

I work in a male dominated field. A member of a client company wanted a document made simple enough that a woman could understand it.

As for how it's handled. Guess who changed project, and who is still involved cause they're too 'important' to be made to be accountable for their actions.

I love my job. And I roll my eyes at that cretin because how embarrassing is it to be like that. But it's reality in the workplace.

You are surely aware that there are nonsexist reasons that contribute to the gender pay gap?
More importantly, you are on holiday. Why are initiating political arguments ?

men being in higher paid jobs

As I said. An earnings gap. Education (probably the single most important job) is dominated by women. Men are promoted because they work towards it. 🙄

So why do men 'work towards promotion' but women don't?
Something to do with living in a sexist society where women are socialised from birth to behave in ways not conducive to self-orientation and career focus.

Plus, what is this 'working towards' promotion exactly? Something that men know how to do but women don't? Some type of behaviour in the workplace that means men are more suited to promotion?
Or is there something about being a man that makes a boss more likely to promote you?

Is this sort of language necessary??

My husband was born in 1950 (thirty years older) and is probably very similar.
However, there's no point for me to get "infuriated".
Thanks to him, I never had to work or want for anything in my adult life.
How many years do such people have left, realistically? 10, 15?
Obviously, I don't know how young is OP's other half.
I rest my case.

Me and my DH had an argument recently in a similar vain. I was furious. If I mention anything linked to sexism, misogyny, women's rights etc, he gets VERY defensive as though it's a personal attack on him (which it isnt). I just want him to admit and see that these are still very real things. He has a wife and a daughter FGS!

Did you see the link i posted upthread where sky news invited a man and a woman to debate gender equality?

they paid the man, but offered no recompense to the woman. He brought it up and she realised he was getting paid and she wasn’t….

we have a massive gender pay gap at work. Civil service. It’s not about the pay at a certain grade, it’s the endemic inequality.

if we have two employees, same grade, sense experience, who have a baby. Women will apply for part time, because they think about the school run, fitting in housework. Male employees at the same grade rarely go part time around family, even though we offer it. Nothing stopping them both dropping to 4 days, but it’s always men stay full time, women step back. One is not earning more so no reason to choose the female partner for PT other than societal gender roles.

once a woman goes part time she stops applying for training courses, promotions, moves into more demanding areas. She feels she’s not seen as “committed”, or worries about whether a new role will fit around family. Men don’t. They carry on.

men will do overtime. Women “have the kids”.

dh and I both worked full time after kids. I kept my career because he stepped up and said no to his employer everytime they said “can’t your wife do it” when it was his turn to do the nursery run. Because he was supportive of my work as I was of his.

Or - women don’t work towards promotion because they’d rather look after their kids. I’d struggle to get promoted as I work part time and am not around some of the week when decisions need to be made. That’s life. I work part time cause schools shut midday on Fridays here in Edinburgh. If the council got their finger out and actually opened the school full time it would do a lot for workplace gender inequality here.

My other half could work part time instead, but I do all of the life admin and part time gives me flexibility for that. Now is it sexist that I do all of the life admin? Maybe, but that’s just the way I like it.

What case?

language can be whatever people choose to express themselves. So the poster thought it necessary. I agree.

you’ve benefited from male privilege and the gender pay gap indirectly through your husband.

he’s had the career he’s had at the expense of female employees. You’ve had your lovely non working life paid for because men are privileged in the workplace.

out of interest, are you taken care of if he leaves you, dies, or becomes incapacitated and can’t work? What then?

Workplace sexism - not something I’ve ever seen personally but I concede that it does exist in many places still. Actually I probably was overlooked for promotion once by a man who was rubbish and the hiring manager was sexist but I was already interviewing elsewhere so it’s easy to forget that. The hiring manager was from a very traditionally sexist cultural background and did struggle with women in the workplace though.

“Not something I’ve ever seen”

then proceeds to give a textbook example of personal experience.

dh experienced it more than me, tbf. He was the one being challenged when he wanted to flex around family. His job allowed it, the work allowed it, yet everytime he’d pick up and leave at 5 for the childcare run his office would say “can’t your wife do it”. Even when there was no operational reason for anyone to stay late.

Many of the men in his office didn’t fight it. They stayed, and their wives would have had to pick up the slack at home. The wives ended up leaving work early for the school runs, to the detriment of their own careers.

Why do a lot of men seem to take any discussion about sexism or misogyny so personally and get sulky and defensive about it?

Oh it exists, in that men have a power gradient over women and often use that to their advantage by acting inappropriately. They also tend to hire someone "who's a bit like them" ie a male.

However, women are more in work than men, and men are failing more in life/employment, so in that way women are winning. Gender pay gap and loosing out on top positions only really happens when women have babies and prioritise other things. That's not sexism, that's what happens when you have children. So he's half right I think, so I don't think you need to be that furious. He has a point.

I cut down on work because I chose to focus more on my home life than work after kids (why me? simply because I'm better at it, have the brain for it and enjoy it. DH doesn't. We're built different - sex differences are real). It has limited how high I reach on the ladder, but that's more my choice. I don't want to deal with that level of stress. I was even promoted even though I work part time. That might not be usual, but I don't think it's that unusual either. (In my case, it showed that competence was the deciding factor, not sex). The Scandinavian countries showed us that the more flexibility each sex has, the MORE these differences become.

That's not true, or not entirely true.

True life example from a law firm I worked with. Needless to say, their gender pay gap was bad because their partners were dominated by men. And of course, on the surface, the reason was that the men worked longer hours, on higher profile matters, and didn't take maternity leave etc ... so sad, but <throws up hands> not the law firm's fault, it's a societal issue blah blah blah blah blah.

But then they took a closer look at things. And surprise surprise, what they found was that the reason men were working the longer hours on better cases wasn't just because the men didn't have as many caring responsibilities or because the men were happy to do it when the women weren't. A BIG part of the reason was because the best work, the most juicy work, the most high profile work, the work that led to the most profit for the law firm.... was being allocated by all those male partners to male associates. And the less interesting, less juicy, less hour-intensive work was being allocated to the women. So the women were doing fewer hours even when young and they were doign less interesting work so weren't as motivated etc etc etc.

So then they implemented an automated work allocation process that did not involve a HUMAN making the decision - based on skills, experience, time availability etc. And what happened? a) many of th epractice areas got very angry and the senior (male) partners refused to use it because they didn't get the assocites they liked and b) when the practice areas DID use it, suddenly, the gap between men and women in hours worked and work on the interesting cases became a lot more even.

Another example. Performance reviews. Pay, bonuses and promotions are based on performance reviews. But, when they looked at it, men, overall, were getting higher performance reviews. Why was that. Shock horror, they looked at what was happenin ginside those performance reviews. And all the old cliches "she lacks gravitas" etc were on display. HR Director pointed out that, overall, the curve for the male and female associates should be the same. And insisted they figure out how to fix it.

These are all the sorts of embedded sexism that exist in firms that drive the gender pay gap. it's way to simplistic to say it's the fact that women take maternity leave and work fewer hours.

Look at the retail sector. Dominated by women at the lower level and YET almost always, it's men at the top? I don't believe that if there are 10 women and 1 man that man always is the one working the long hours while the women are all taking part time work for caring responsibilities. Bullshit.

Because deep down they know if it disappears, theys uddenly have to compete with the entire population, and not just half.